Citi Field may be haven for pitchers, daunting for hitters

NEW YORK – Pitcher Chris Young ascended the dugout steps, stopped and gazed in all directions shortly before the Padres and Mets opened Citi Field last night.

Young then smiled broadly, impressed by the new King of Queens.

“I'm just trying to take it all in,” he said. “It's beautiful. It's big, yet it's intimate. I think it's gorgeous. They did a tremendous job. I'm extremely impressed. Already, it's one of my favorites.”

“If I were pitching here,” said Black, a former major league pitcher, “I'd throw it away to right-handed hitters.”

Black noted that it's 408 feet to straightaway center field, 415 to right center. He then pointed to an 18-foot, 6½ -inch-high wall in right field. “Straightaway right plays 390 feet,” Black said, obviously pleased.

Hitters may not be as fond of Citi Field. A bandbox, it is not.

“It's going to play really big,” Padres closer Heath Bell said. “I think it's going to be really good for the Mets, just because they are fast.”

Bell predicted that Mets speedster Jose Reyes someday will notch an inside-the-park home run here, without needing to slide.

Not surprisingly, one of the ballpark's architectural glitches relates to its bullpens, which were shoehorned into a semi-covered area beyond right-center field.

“Relievers are always an afterthought,” Bell said, smiling. “Some of the grounds crew at San Francisco's ballpark told me that they pretty much forgot about building a bullpen there. That's why all you have is a bench and a patch of dirt there. I know there were issues with the bullpens at Petco (when San Diego's ballpark opened in 2004).”

Padres relievers, sequestered in the upper bullpen at Citi, had almost no view of the field, owing to the two tarps that cover part of the home bullpen and a billboard that fronts a seating section. “It's bad,” Bell said.

It could have been worse. At Shea Stadium, which housed the Mets from 1964-2008, fans in the upper deck had open access to players. Visiting relievers were sometimes showered not only with verbal abuse but various projectiles, liquid and solid, which, according to longtime reliever Trevor Hoffman, once led to a fastball reply, directed at a fan trying to relieve himself on the relievers.

Distinguishing characteristics at Citi include the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, a brick-and-glass arched foyer through which about 40 percent of fans will enter the ballpark; a giant apple that emerges from beyond the center-field wall when a Met hits a home run; a right-field deck that juts several feet over the field, à la old Tiger Stadium; an outfield wall that changes height seven times; a brick exterior that's an ode to Brooklyn's Ebbets Field; and seats whose dark green hue honors the Polo Grounds, the original home of the Mets.

Bell said Citi Field feels like Petco Park.

“I don't get that,” Black said.

For fans who can afford ticket prices that range from $11 to $695, Citi offers better food and sightlines than Shea, which has been reduced to rubble and parking spaces. The Mets report that hamburgers, chicken tenders and beer are cheaper than at Shea. A 16-ounce can of Bud is $7.50 and a 12-ouncer is $6.50. Some of New York's popular eating establishments are present here, including a Shake Shack and a five-tiered restaurant.

The metal framework at Citi is dark blue. Sand-colored bricks front the backstop and horseshoe-shaped exterior. Kentucky bluegrass is abundant, owing to the massive outfield and, by 21st century standards, considerable foul ground that, save for the 44-foot distance from home plate to the bricks, is larger than at Petco.